What have you done on the plot today?

[MikeFromLFE]

Pruned hacked the garden fig tree - a truly hateful job due to the sap and the weight/density of the branches. This year it's had a lot taken off - nothing seems to affect its productivity!

[Aunt Maud]

Stomped all over the emerging snowdrops whilst admiring the bright red dog rose hips, dopey git.

[spindrift]

First camellia flower's out.

[ElyDave]

Pruned hacked the garden fig tree - a truly hateful job due to the sap and the weight/density of the branches. This year it's had a lot taken off - nothing seems to affect its productivity!

I do ours every year, it's still triffid-like

[ElyDave]

unfleeced my favourite bonsai. It's too big to get through the greenhouse door.   Always the first in flower (I believe the Japanese use cherry blossom as a sign of spring), and I should have taken the fleece off earlier, but for the BFTE.

This is actually the reverse side - of the three trees this one always flowers first. A bit of extremity die back but not too much.

[Aunt Maud]

Lovely stuff ElyDave.

[ElyDave]

Thanks,

I've had those for about 19 years, always grown as a group and only ever styled by pruning, never wired.

[ElyDave]

Out in the garden today, managed to get quite a few jobs done

- completed the support structure for the raspberries, 1" stakes, bracing and two levels of wires
- general tidy up of the veg plot and removal of the weed cover
- direct sewing of some beetroot, chard and salad crops, sewed some brassicas in a seed tray
- potting on of some nasturtiums
- a couple of other pottings.

Had planned on more potting of stuff but ran out of compost
Next big job is to create a Japanese-ish area of some trees that I have in pots as potential future bonsai, it's got a nice slope to be able to graduate from pines/conifers down to deciduous

[rafletcher]

Laid turf around the raised beds. When did turf start coming in 1sq m rolls? When harvested from Chilterns clay after a wet spring, the rolls are both quite heavy and very slippery!

[Legs]

Pulled up loads of groundsel.

[spindrift]

Wild garlic is taking over, dirty great clumps of it. If soil's moist you can pull a load up and the bulbs come with them, otherwise you just rip them and your hands stink even through the gloves.

[ElyDave]

Bought some bedding and ground cover, to go out tomorrow
Planted out some early lettuce - a tray from waitrose at £1.10 of little plug type plants, ideal.

Pruned a few bonsai to direct future growth and took a few cuttinsg from the pomegranate that had gone leggy over the winter

Tomorrow will be a day to get at it with a plan to move around a lot of my trees into one place and replant other areas as more traditional flower beds

[Aunt Maud]

Drank beer on the lawn.....fell asleep.

[ElyDave]

from this, dug up out of the garden at 7am



via this



and this



to this, by 9am



some tidying up to do, but its looking good alongside another one I did on Sunday

[Bledlow]

unfleeced my favourite bonsai. It's too big to get through the greenhouse door.   Always the first in flower (I believe the Japanese use cherry blossom as a sign of spring), ...

Oh yes. Along with drunken parties under blossoming cherry trees. Parks can get rather lively in sakura season.

[spindrift]

Those Wilko tulips that went in last September:

[Aunt Maud]

Tidied up the shuttlecock ferns Matteuccia struthiopteris ...



And inspected the Yellow Rattle Rhinanthus minor seedlings in the wildflower patch. They may be small, but they are essential to creating a wildflower meadow in grassland.

[Si S]

Taken about 8' off the hedge from hell. I reckon I know how Sisyphous felt. I'd planned to do this today last week and nearly put it off after WVM had a moan about it being too overgrown to drive down the alley on Friday but it looks like someone has spilt a bag of nails down there. 
 

[campagman]

Due to being away cycling I thought that I missed the best time for sowing seeds. I saw today that now is still good for sowing runner beans outside. I bought some new canes and now have a Wigwam ready for some of last years saved beans to shoot up, hopefully.
While I was at it I also potted up some tomato plants in the G'house. They are in their final positions now.

[rafletcher]

Planted out the sweetcorns, and split and inter planted the red cos lettuces in between them.

[ElyDave]

all veggies now in their final positions.

yesterday, some major pruning on a shrubby/bushy/tree-ey thing that get seriously out of hand if you leave it.  Then decided that that I was finally going to do something about the compost heaps and the raised bed layout.  Said shrubby thing overshadows and dried out the raised bed next to it, compost heaps in a corner that is hard to get to with a wheelbarrow, so decided to swap the two.

So, build compost heap number 1 (rat resistant prototype, mk2 mods already in mind).
Start dismantling existing heaps, spread well rotted compost out in the base of where the raised bed will go
Temporarily move the rhubarb, raspberries and buxus cuttings out of the raised bed into a loose pile in the corner.
Dismantle raised bed from the outside and reposition (fits almost exactly)
Start moving dry topsoil to allow room for new compost heap, position and fill heap
Move all remaining topsoil
Replant

Got about ten minutes help from daughter, about an hour from wife. About 5 hours in total from picking up the fist piece of wood for the new heap, to heading in for dinner having also watered everything that needs it. 

[ElyDave]

Fruit cage constructed today.  Needs a bit more work but sufficient for now.

Next task, find a new pane of glass for the greenhouse.

[Legs]

Put the roof over the fruit cage yesterday evening - it's a 2-person job so we had to wait until the little people were asleep.  Pulled out a ridiculous amount of couch grass, buttercups, docks, nettles, rosebay willowherb and errant raspberries over the weekend, but we've still got about 3/4 of the fruit patch to weed...  Picked the first ripe strawberry - hurray!  Loads more coming if we can keep the slugs at bay. 

[Basil]

Not my plot, the next door neighbour's.
Their garden is completely overgrown and has fecking leylandii at the bottom perimeter.  Last time I spotted the landlord visiting I asked him if it be all right if I lopped them a bit.  He agreed readily,  so today was spent precariously perched up a ladder with a saw.
Took about 5 feet off them.
I'll be doing it every year now. I consider the permission to on going.   And they'll get shorter every year. 

[Riggers]

Went up the lot late yesterday afternoon, to do some 'damned good watering', as it hasn't rained for at least a couple of weeks, and find the blasted garlic is developing rust spots. Damn. Serious infection can inhibit or completely stop the bulb growing, and it's an air-bourne fungus affecting alliums (so can affect/infect onions and leeks too).

Just read up about it this morning, and somebody suggests pulling off/cutting the affected leaves and getting rid of them, making sure you wash your hands and implements (such as scissors or shears used) so the infection isn't carried over to over plants, and the garlic should still be able to photosynthesise and continue developing! I'll try it!

'They' also suggest it's helpful to water during the day, rather than in the evening, so the plants have a chance to dry out rather than remain damp overnight, because the 'rust' likes damp warm air.

Some of the garlic leaves are yellow as well, and you think: "Too much water? Too little?" Gawd.

Also some bastard insect has been enjoying the onion leaves. Bastards.